I hate how I indent my assembly code. I helps readability, but I am very inconsistent. Basically I tend to increase the indent when it feels like a proper branch or a loop (as if it would be one in higher level languages like C) but I tend not to indent when it is simply a random jump target. I don't want to use unnamed labels. I like how I see my labels in the debugger, it is very useful to me.

As for myself here's how I go about indenting things (you can adopt as much or as little of this as you want)

Code:

; two spaces for each intent level due to me sometimes being in 3 or 4 levels deep in IF and LOOPSsubroutine: ; top level for global label intended to be called by outside code pha ; pha and pla introduces a indent level lda test1 beq skip_everything ; forward branches inside a subroutine indents forward until the label ldy count loop: ; labels from backward branches indents until the branch lda test3 bmi else_is_negative ; this is a if else structure which has a somewhat special way of indenting is_positive: ; A label to remind me what the condition was to get here, also makes it easier to reorder blocks of code inc sum jmp endif ; outside of the if else structure I generally unindent jmp and rts. Even if it's in the middle of the code. else_is_negative: dec sum endif: dey beq loop lda sum beq no_save sta saved_sum no_save: ; all branches goes to unique labels, even if they are at the same PC. skip_everything: plarts ; rts ends the subroutine block so I unindent.

From then I occasionally add a blank line between sections of code that otherwise don't have branches.

There are exceptions of course, especially when I optimize branch ordering for speed.

Edit: Spelling corrections

Last edited by JRoatch on Sat Dec 29, 2018 7:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

I usually don't indent since this is something I'm used for high level language like c, java etc. For asm, I tend to put blank lines to separate group of action of if it refer to a specific processing.

Here an example of a helper function (that is a little long) used while fading the palette at a specific step. The reason a take a longer one is to show what I mean by blank lines:

Code:

;->BEGIN----------------------------------------------------------------------;; Helper function that apply a value on the palette for a specific range; ; note:; - most locals are set from calling function; - 'A' contains decrement;.proc subFadeStep;---------------- Parameters definitions ----------------.scope local paletteAdr = zpTemp ; adress of source palette steps = zpTemp+2 ; how many color to change start = zpTemp+3 ; where to start in palette decrement = zpTemp+4 ; to remove by how much waitFrames = zpTemp+5 ; How many frame to wait at the end of 1 step useVBlank = zpTemp+6 ; use vblank instead of nmi for waiting .endscope;---------------------------------------------------------

But formatting code is something personal and that you define with time. The only time you will want everyone to make it all the same is while working at a company: if you don't, trying to read other people code and managing it will be quite hell ^^;;

I generally use what amounts to the same style as bleubleu, with 2 spaces, without dedenting jump/branch the way JRoatch does. I even built a preprocessor for RGBASM (Game Boy assembler), which expects all labels to start in column 1, to be able to keep this indent style.

Indentation is slightly more important in assembly than in C, as I'm not aware of any automated way to determine block structure in assembly. In C, on the other hand, there exist numerous indent filters.

The whole concept of indenting feels misguided. Assembly doesn't nest, and the control flow it produces often jumps around in a way that can't be represented with indentations (i.e. the control flow is irreducible). The moment you break the indentation rules for an unusual jump, the advantage of indenting goes out the window because it's not consistent anymore.

Indentation resembling that associated with block-structured languages at least shows readers of your code that you're trying to adhere to the principles of structured programming with early exit to the extent possible in assembly language.

Assembly doesn't nest, and the control flow it produces often jumps around in a way that can't be represented with indentations (i.e. the control flow is irreducible). The moment you break the indentation rules for an unusual jump, the advantage of indenting goes out the window because it's not consistent anymore.

I don't believe there is a way to indent assembly in any 100% consistent way.

However, I feel there's a lot of value in visual information from indentation, and just because some cases won't fit a structure exactly doesn't mean that it can't be helpful to indicate cases that do, and can even apply in a useful way to cases that don't quite.

In most cases, I add an indent after a branch, and that indent will end at the end of the code it jumps to. For "if, else" style, there's a brief break in the indent at the else. This makes the length of the branch and its structure instantly readable visually, and I can quickly skim to the end of the structure without having to read the code in between. These two cases covers probably 95% of indents in my assembly code. Especially when nesting simple decision branches within a larger if/else, this make it very easy to see the hierarchy and extent of what's happening there. (typical example)

Sometimes it gets weird, and I'll make a decision whether to indent or not. It's not necessarily consistent with the rest of my code, but this is because assembly code structures are not consistent. I simply make a decision about how I think I would best read the indent when I'm trying to come back to this code in the future, and leave it that way. Sometime that means a flat/unindented style. Sometimes that means indents that don't match other uses quite. Sometimes that means an extra comment or two to clarify.

The bottom line is that the indents are there to make something easy to read. They're not information for a computer or a compiler, so they don't need to fit some formal and absolute definition of structure. The tabs are merely a visual tool.

If I was writing code that was part of a library for a company that is selling the code itself as the product, however, and not something for my own use, most likely a non-indented style would be mandated for assembly, partly for the consistency, but mostly for traditional practice. It is simply the "standard" appearance of assembly code, and probably worth using as a lowest-common-denominator that nobody would be able to say is an unexpected or irregular practice. This usage case is very different than anything I've done for the NES though.

Yeah, I don't indent ASM code either. One of the advantages of using assembly is that you're not bound to the constructs of higher-level languages, so you can optimize your code in ways that are not possible in other languages. Not that I'm suggesting everyone starts writing messy spaghetti code, you should definitely try to adhere to some sort of programming style that makes sense to you, so that if you're coherent enough, your own code will always make sense to you, it's just that imposing formatting limitations that weren't even invented for this type of language can't really end well, can it?

What makes assembly particularly hard to indent is the fact that there are often several paths to a given set of instructions. In higher-level languages you have to nest all the different decisions and each one will select whether to go deeper or not, but in assembly you can move freely to any depth, different paths can merge later, it's a completely different story.

Instead of using indentation and trying to artificially make my program look like it has a structure it doesn't, what I do is write comments at the top of each block of related instructions explaining the conditions that lead to the execution of that block. I always start a new block with instructions that are the target of significant jumps/branches, so I can easily tell the paths that the logic can take. This means that I still have easily discernible blocks of logic, the difference is that they're not nested, I can move freely from block to block.

Is the normal way I do it. Once you get into the A -> C,DB -> CC -> E,FE -> GF -> Bkind of chains it starts to become meaningless to do the indents for all of it. Putting an empty line after a hard jmp, effective jmp or rts is also normal for me. Sometimes you can fix it by making some parts of the code into a macro/segment and using that to keep the structure clearer, but then its obfuscated by having code hidden behind macros.

Getting into this discussion on the C64 forums usually gets heated. With people declaring the C64 doesn't have a TAB key for a reason.. to which one can shoot back with the more evolved C128 does

Like Oziphantom said, it becomes quite "religious" to some degree so its better to not go to deep into it ^^;; There is no perfect way but the one you feel comfortable with it. The only time you need to adhere to a style is when you work with a group of individual.

I do like Rainwarrior - I indent when it helps readability. I'm not consistent with any rule, I just do whatever makes that chunk of code easier for me to read later. Sometimes that means indenting like C. Sometimes it just means lots of comments and vertical spacing.

I agree with many of the points above (although not all). I indent to make conditionals and loops obvious, and also things like what's between a PHA and PLA for example. I always indent at least three spaces. One or two spaces are just enough to make it look like you just got really sloppy at vertical alignment, whereas three is pretty clear; or if the indented portion is pretty long, I might go for four, rarely five.

Blank lines are also important to readability. I hate trying to read code from the 1970's and early 80's where all the mnemonics start in the same column and there are no blank lines to visually group sets of instructions like punctuation and paragraphs do in prose.

Several years ago I realized there's a way to do nestable program flow-control structures in assembly macros without labels, even if the assembler does not provide a way to have variable arrays in the assembler itself and index into them in order to have the needed stack in the assembler itself. Since then, I've been enjoying assembly language a lot more and I've become more productive and gotten fewer bugs. In most cases, the macros assemble exactly the same thing you would do by hand, but they make the source code more readable and maintainable. In some cases you'll actually get better efficiency from the macros, just because there's greater visibility of what you're doing, which helps you spot inefficiencies in your approach. Use of the structure macros still allows the use of labels so you can jump into the middle of a program structure; but I don't do that without a really good reason. My article on it is at http://wilsonminesco.com/StructureMacros/ . There are some longer usage examples in the last 40% of my page on multitasking at http://wilsonminesco.com/multitask/, and more explanation of how the assembler does them in the program-structure chapter of my 6502 stacks treatise, at http://wilsonminesco.com/stacks/pgmstruc.html .

I sort of follow what I'm used to from other languages just because it makes things easier for me to read and wrap my head around. I'm not super consistent with it but for me that's not really the point. I just want to be able to read and understand what I'm doing with the code, so with that I usually do a lot of comments and little "TODO" notes.

I'll follow Banshaku's example and show you my take on the same task.

Code:

BufferOffsetBackgroundPalette:

; a = how much to subtract from currently loaded palette.

; TODO: if the palette pointers have not been set yet, do something to handle that.

ldx palette_bkg_ptr_lo ldy palette_bkg_ptr_hi

stx curr_pointer_lo sty curr_pointer_hi

ldx #15

jmp BufferOffsetPalette

BufferOffsetSpritePalette:

; a = how much to subtract from currently loaded palette.

ldx palette_sprites_ptr_lo ldy palette_sprites_ptr_hi

stx curr_pointer_lo sty curr_pointer_hi

ldx #31

BufferOffsetPalette:

; x = palette_buffer end index

pha ; how much to subtract

lda nmi_flags and #NMI_UPDATE_PALETTE_CLEAR sta nmi_flags

ldy #15 @offsetloop:

pla pha ; push this for next loop iteration clc adc (curr_pointer_lo), y ; offset palette value with a pha ; push this so we can use a for some logic

; first, lets knock down all $xE and $xF to $xD and #%00001111 cmp #$0e bcc @no_xE ; we've determined that the value must be $xE or $xF

lda palette_buffer, x cmp #$3d+1 ; so now we check if any value goes above 3d (out of range) and cap it to either 30 or 0d bcc @nocap ; is the value above 127? cmp #0 bpl @nocap1 ; if the offset was negative, this is our stop lda #$0d jmp @nocap @nocap1 ; this is where we end up if the offset was positive lda #$30 @nocap

sta palette_buffer, x

dex dey cpy #$ff bne @offsetloop

pla ; clean stack from original a value

; TODO: patch all sprite opacity buffers with that of the background palette buffer lda palette_buffer sta palette_buffer+16 ; seems just patching the first entry of the sprite palette buffer is enough..

lda nmi_flags ora #NMI_UPDATE_PALETTE sta nmi_flags

rts

I'm surprised so many people seem to not do indentation! For me that simply wouldn't work. My mind needs some visual aide even to just help my eye find it's way back to the right spot on the screen when going back and forth between all my source files.

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